For 25 years, Lurie was a high-profile Bay Area criminal defense attorney, but the stress of his legal work got so bad that he worried it might kill him.

So, six years ago, he gave up the law, and he's now in a very different profession, as a broadcaster.

At the age of 55, Lurie is back in the world of his Brooklyn boyhood, a world where the diamonds shine brightly and the grass is always green.

Despite the dramatic drop in financial compensation, Lurie wouldn't even think about returning to the courtroom.

His business is baseball history now, and he's very adept at it.

He conducts two A's pregame shows on KABL (960 AM), tracking down and interviewing not only current stars of the sport but the old-timers and people on the periphery who give the game its feel, fabric and continuing appeal.

Lurie was born in Brooklyn in 1946, a year before Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers, and Lurie's baseball roots go back to Ebbets Field.

"My father died when I was 4, so I never really knew him," Lurie said, "but an uncle introduced me to baseball, and it became my ray of hope, my sunshine."

Lurie went to the University of Florida and University of Miami law school, graduating in 1971, then practiced law in the East for a year before moving to California and starting a practice here.

"It was a mixture of civil and criminal law," he said, "but in 1980 or so, I went exclusively to criminal law."

For most of his quarter-century as an attorney, Lurie worked alone.

"I represented maybe 3,000 people over the 25 years, and I had 125 homicide cases," he said. "Everyone has a story, and I always enjoyed fighting for the accused. I always felt that was a major part of our criminal justice system. As long as you perform it ethically, a defense attorney has a real function: making the prosecution prove their case."

True to the code of his former profession, Lurie avoids clients' names, but he said one of his most memorable cases, in 1980, involved a defendant who claimed he had been given PCP without his knowledge, then shot and killed a man and committed a robbery.

"He was convicted of second-degree murder, but the verdict was reversed on appeal because of an error by the trial judge," Lurie said. "At the re-trial, my client was convicted of manslaughter.

"He served his time, and, years later, I saw him on the street one day. He had gotten religion and had a family. That gave me faith in the whole process that rehabilitation is possible, that the anger of society can be tempered, and should be, from time to time."

Over the years, however, the work began to wear on Lurie, and after losing a grueling murder case in 1995, he'd had enough.

"I went through a major burnout," he said. "I was working six or seven days a week and giving, giving, giving. I was just not able to do it anymore."

A friend who knew of his passion for sports -- particularly baseball -- hooked Lurie up with the people who started GiantsVision, and he wound up doing the programming on JumboTron at Giants games.

That led to a radio sports-talk job on a tiny FM station in the East Bay, KECG. And then, in 1998, then-station manager Joe Buerry of A's affiliate KATD (990 AM) asked him if he'd like to do a pregame show.

And a fulfilling new career was born.

"I sold the sponsorships and paid KATD per show, which I called 'Right Off the Bat,' " Lurie said. "We did 162 shows covering both the A's and Giants."

Lurie was on KATD exclusively for three seasons. Then, when that station was sold last October, A's broadcasting director Ken Pries talked with Lurie about doing a show that would feature a fresh daily interview dealing with "the color, humor and personality of baseball" on KABL, the A's flagship station.

That's where Lurie can be found now, with a pair of shows, the 20-minute "Right Off the Bat" and then a five-minute segment during the A's regular pregame show.

This year's version of that second segment is titled "Memories of the Game, " following "This Day in Baseball History" and "A Century of Athletics' Baseball" the previous two seasons.

"It's been a wonderful experience," said Lurie, who is now passing the 600 mark in broadcasts.

Despite that airtime load, he has more time than he used to have for his wife, Christina, and children Bonnie, 26, Evan, 23, and Aaron, 12.

"Emotionally and mentally, it's been a great transition (from being an attorney)," he said. "I have a passion for baseball, just as I had for the law,

and I think that is one of the reasons why I've had success. I feel, in some ways, I'm doing a service again. I'm trying to preserve the history of baseball, and the reception from fans has been wonderful."

One of those fans is Hall of Fame baseball writer Leonard Koppett, who raves about Lurie's work.

"What's he's doing is unique, unsurpassed, totally worthwhile," Koppett said. "He does it as well as anybody ever could do it. He's creating a phenomenal historical file. If you're a real baseball fan, he's filling a vacuum with that wonderful stuff."